The government of Zimbabwe under the Command Housing programme, is set to construct 470 000 house in the next five years following identification of 107 000 suitable sites for the construction across the country.
Mr George Magosvongwe, the secretary for Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, confirmed the reports and said that the scheme, which President Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to officially launch, aims at modernizing Zimbabwe with the help of the Human settlement policy.
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The command housing program
The command housing program includes refurbishment of existing infrastructure and residential suburbs. The designs of the high-rise apartments have already been completed and so far, the government has availed US $150m for phase one of the program.
Houses under the scheme would be built low-cost,medium-cost and high cost. The high rise apartment will accommodate more families and near the location of the apartments, clinics and schools will be built for easy access to social services.
“It’s a collective effort to achieve the goal of the command housing program,” Magosvongwe said. He added that talks with banks, pension funds and other stakeholders are already underway.
Title deeds are set to be made available for those living in the urban and rural areas by the relevant government bodies. The National Command Housing program will be able to deliver 500,000 units of homes in 10 years. Zimbabwe is facing backlog of an estimated 1.3 million housing units.For the last 20 years illegal settlements in and around urban areas have rendered services such ad portable water and sewer impossible. The new program will use strategy such a vertical space instead of horizontal space to preserve the arable land.
